12 Best HDToday Alternatives: Safe, Free, and Legal in 2025

HDToday was once the go-to site for free movies, but it’s frequently offline due to copyright infringement issues. While some mirror sites claiming to be HDToday are still online, these are unreliable and pose significant security and legal risks to users.

What are the best HDToday alternatives? Pluto TV is an extremely popular free streaming service with over 34.48 million visits in January 2025 alone¹. There are several other free and legal HDToday alternatives that offer extensive libraries of licensed movies and TV shows. These platforms are safe and reliable, so you won't have to worry about unexpected shutdowns or buffering during crucial scenes.

The Best HDToday Alternatives — 2025 Guide

1. Pluto TV — A HDToday Alternative With a Vast Selection of Live Channels and TV Shows

Pluto TV offers a unique viewing experience with over 150 live channels and on-demand content for free. The Viacom-owned platform includes dedicated streams for binge-watching popular series, too. You’ll find content from huge, popular networks like Paramount Studios, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and MTV.

Other categories include true crime, reality, paranormal, and new movies

You don't need to register to start watching, but if you do, you can mark your favorite channels and resume playback. A standout feature of PlutoTV is its TV channel guide, which enhances the traditional TV experience on digital platforms. We watched Love at First Bite, a 95-minute movie, and were impressed that there were only 2 brief ads. It played in excellent quality.

2. Crunchyroll — A HDToday Alternative with Free Anime

Crunchyroll is renowned for its extensive free anime catalog, with over 30,000 episodes. Its library ranges from classics to new releases, with a unique simulcast feature for streaming popular episodes just an hour after their broadcast in Japan.

You can also compile a watch list under Settings

Crunchyroll is available in multiple countries globally, but some content may not be available in certain locations due to licensing agreements. Its US library is the largest one, but other countries won’t be short of great shows to watch. All the free content comes with ads, but you can go premium to unlock the ad-free experience. Also, you can only watch the first season of many shows for free.

3. Crackle — The Best HDToday Alternative for US Content

Crackle is a US-based free streaming service offering a mix of classic shows and films with titles like Hell’s Kitchen and Halloween. You can instantly watch a wide selection of movies without an account. Additionally, Crackle features films and shows from major studios like MGM, Lions Gate, and Sony Pictures, adding a variety of popular and quality content to its library.

It also has a host of classic UK TV, including Shameless, Doc Martin, and Line of Duty

Crackle’s unique "Always On" mode offers a continuous stream of content as soon as you launch the app. While the available content is decent, Crackle doesn't offer many live TV channels, and it’s currently only available in the US.

4. Free Movies — A YouTube Channel With Over 250 Free Movies

The Free Movies YouTube channel features a wide range of content from several genres, such as drama, teen comedy, documentaries, and independent, making it easy to find something for everyone. It’s part of the Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment group, which also owns Redbox, Crackle, and Popcornflix (which is also on YouTube).

The ads on Free Movies are quite long

The platform's WatchLater feature lets you save movies to a dedicated playlist, allowing you to find them easily whenever you're ready to watch. This handy tool keeps your must-see films organized and at your fingertips. Unfortunately, YouTube ads are pretty intrusive, and appear at the start, end, and throughout the stream.

5. BBC iPlayer — A HDToday Alternative With Lots of British Content

BBC iPlayer is a free alternative to HDToday, full of on-demand and live-streaming content. You can enjoy everything from live events to popular British shows like Doctor Who and Dragon’s Den in HD and UHD. Plus, it also hosts exclusive BBC shows that you won’t find anywhere else.

You have to confirm you have a TV license before you can watch anything on iPlayer

While streaming is easy via browsers on PCs (Windows and Mac), dedicated apps are available too. The iPlayer app enhances your viewing experience by letting you pause and rewind live streams. You can also download shows to watch offline on your mobile and tablet. However, BBC iPlayer is only available in the UK.

6. Fandango at Home — The New Name For Vudu

Fandango at Home features a wide range of free movies, including classics like Nosferatu (1922), critically acclaimed films such as The Hurt Locker and Battle Royale, and other notable titles like Requiem For a Dream and Red State.

There's also an extensive collection of free horror, including The Blair Witch Project and Lake Mungo

Meanwhile, you also get plenty of UK comedy, such as The Office, Gavin & Stacey, and Red Dwarf. You’ll also find US classics like Alf, Masters of Horror, and Lexx. All free content is supported by ads. You can browse without signing in, but you’ll need to create an account to watch any content.

7. Tubi TV — A HDToday Alternative with a Large Collection of Highly-Rated Movies

Tubi TV boasts an impressive collection of over 50,000 free titles, including a selection of movies that are highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes, making it a fantastic choice for movie lovers. You can enjoy everything from Hollywood blockbusters to indie films and classic TV shows, all without a subscription fee.

There are some good recent movies on Tubi, such as Call Me By Your Name and The Florida Project

Owned by Fox, Tubi features content from industry giants like MGM, Warner Bros., and Paramount. It frequently updates its library, ensuring you’ll have plenty of fresh content to enjoy. Tubi is currently available in the US, Canada, and the UK.

8. Plex TV — A Good HDToday Alternative With Live and On-Demand Content

Plex TV provides a wide range of free, legal, and on-demand content available in many countries globally. The platform boasts over 20,000 movie titles and more than 300 live TV channels, greatly expanding your streaming choices. It covers several genres, too, like sports, food and home, history, science, comedy, and action.

It's a great choice for comedy fans, as it has a huge library of old and new shows

The platform is compatible with a variety of devices and offers downloadable apps for Android, Apple, and smart TV platforms. Plex TV shows a few ads and previews of its own new content before each stream, but we didn’t find this too intrusive.

9. The Roku Channel — The Best HDToday Alternative for Classic Movies

The Roku Channel has a dedicated section for free classic cinema content. The library is vast, but be aware that much of the content is public domain or straight to video, so unlike Tubi TV or Crackle, it doesn’t have recent Hollywood blockbusters.

Roku Originals includes Martha Cooks, and The Charlie Puth Show

The user-friendly interface allows easy navigation across a diverse range of content, including live channels and Roku Originals — all without a subscription. However, you can't set or change the video streaming quality on the Roku Channel, and all content comes with ads.

10. Rakuten Viki — The Best HDToday Alternative for East Asian TV and Movies

Rakuten Viki offers tons of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese dramas for free, and each one has a ton of available subtitle options. Users can join the subtitling and translation team for each show, and you can see how complete a language’s subtitles are within the player’s settings.

Rakuten Viki focuses solely on dramas, so there's not a wide genre range

Like some of our other recommendations, it’s ad-supported, and some of its content is only available with the premium pass. Unfortunately, free users can only stream at 480p, and this lack of quality was really noticeable when we streamed The Witch. However, we didn’t have any buffering issues.

11. Sling Freestream — 600+ Free Channels of News, Shows, and Movies

Sling Freestream features classic TV shows such as Mad Men and The Walking Dead, alongside news (including ABC News, CBS, and Fox), reality shows, sports, and documentaries. You also get classic movies like The Commitments and Glengarry Glen Ross, but the majority of its content is TV.

Most of the TV content on Sling Freestream is factual

Ads play before any live-streamed content and during movies. Each break lasts a couple of minutes, so they’re less intrusive than on some players. I was also impressed that you get 10 hours of free cloud DVR storage. No login or registration is required.

12. Midnight Pulp — The Weirdest HDToday Alternative for Cult Horror Fans

Midnight Pulp features a selection of horror, fantasy, and sci-fi for free. While there are only around 20 free movies, they’re carefully curated to cater to genre fans, and they’re not the usual public domain titles that you’ll find on many other free platforms.

If you're looking for a cult classic, you'll probably find it here

There’s also a 24/7 free live channel showing weird and wonderful movies. No sign-up is required. We were also impressed that the content played without ads — there were markers on the timeline that indicated ad breaks, but no ads actually played.

Quick Comparison Table: Best HDToday Alternatives

To help you compare and select the best HDToday alternatives, I summarized platforms and their unique features in the table below. All these are legal sites where you can stream free content without buffering.

Common Streaming Issues and Solutions

During our extensive testing of streaming platforms, we came across various issues that you might face while using our recommended HDToday alternatives. Here are some solutions you can try should you run into problems.

• Buffering or slow loading times. We found this often occurred due to poor internet connectivity or server overload. If you’re having this issue, check your internet speed to ensure it’s fast enough for streaming, and switch to a wired connection if possible.
• Intermittent playback interruptions. This issue was frequently tied to device performance and browser glitches. Try clearing your cache and restarting the device.
• Poor video or audio quality. This was often caused by outdated software or insufficient bandwidth. You can resolve it by ensuring your software is up to date and adjusting the streaming settings to match your internet speed. Learn more about how to optimize your network’s bandwidth in our guide.
• Login or account issues. We encountered this when credentials were entered incorrectly. Double-checking your login details and resetting your password can typically fix the problem.
• Disruption from ads. While free platforms often rely on ads, we found using ad blockers (where permitted) or upgrading to a premium subscription significantly reduced interruptions. Take a look at our top recommended free ad blockers.

How to Stay Safe While Streaming HDToday Alternatives

Streaming content online can expose you to multiple privacy threats. Free sites need to make money to operate, so they often snoop on your connection and sell your data to their advertising partners. Other, less legitimate sites may contain hidden malware, insecure login pages, or other security risks that leave your personal information exposed.

Whenever you stream content online, we recommend using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service — our top choice is ExpressVPN. VPNs encrypt your internet connection and route it through a secure server, masking your connection data to ensure a safer streaming experience. The best VPNs for streaming movies also have ad blockers that can even prevent in-video ads.

On top of that, a VPN enhances your overall streaming experience by providing a stable and secure connection. It can even sometimes improve your speeds, especially if your internet service provider (ISP) throttles speeds during peak times.

To learn more about how these tools keep you safe while streaming, take a look at our beginner’s guide to VPNs.

Editor's Note: Transparency is one of our core values at vpnMentor, so you should know we are in the same ownership group as ExpressVPN. However, this does not affect our review process.

HDToday Alternatives to Avoid

Most free HDToday alternatives aren’t licensed to broadcast the copyrighted material they host. While you could use them to stream content in the public domain (which doesn’t require a license), these platforms often lack security measures, exposing you to various cyber threats like malware, viruses, and hacks. They also often contain broken links and have low-quality videos.

Legality and safety are essential things to consider when choosing HDToday alternatives. We strongly recommend avoiding these platforms, even for public domain content:

FAQs on HDToday Alternatives

Is HDToday safe?

HDToday is not entirely safe due to its unregulated nature and potential exposure to malicious ads or malware. Streaming on such platforms can compromise your device’s security and expose your personal data. I recommend using legal streaming alternatives to avoid these risks. If you still choose to use HDToday, consider using a VPN with a reliable ad and malware blocker.

Do I need a VPN for legal streaming sites?

Yes, I would recommend it. A VPN can enhance your privacy by encrypting your connection, especially on public Wi-Fi. It can also help prevent trackers and annoying ads on streaming platforms.

Why is HDToday not working?

HDToday may not work due to server downtime, domain changes, or blocking by your internet service provider. It’s also frequently taken down due to copyright infringement. HDToday.tv received 12.73 million visits in January 2025³, but it’s likely that these were redirected to mirror sites. I suggest switching to a legal and free alternative to HDToday, as these are safer and more reliable.

Which free streaming platforms work without registration?

Many of the platforms listed above allow streaming without mandatory registration. These free, ad-supported services provide a wide range of movies and TV shows legally. However, creating an account on some platforms allows you to create watch lists and resume playback on the content you’re streaming.

How do I avoid ads on free streaming platforms?

You can subscribe to premium plans on some sites to remove ads. Free platforms like Tubi or Crackle include ads, but using an ad blocker may reduce their frequency. Be cautious with ad blockers on legal sites, as some platforms may restrict access if they detect one.

References

1. https://www.semrush.com/website/pluto.tv/overview/
2. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/android-minecraft-clones-with-35m-downloads-infect-users-with-adware/
3. https://www.semrush.com/website/hdtoday.tv/overview/